Shame I have no interest in a thinner, less featured iMac. For a desktop machine, I don't care if it is 1",1.5", 2" or 3" deep (with a curved back to disguise the depth). I care about CPU power, graphical power, memory capacity and expandability and storage capacity.

In Spain in google.es, I have checked they advertised the new Imac as IMAC Air.
There is 2 ads. In the one they advertised it as the new Imac Air and in another one they advertised a new starting price of 1003€ when at the moment the starting price is 1099€

I checked and I see "Configura tu iMac aquÃ*. Â¡Ahora incluye Mac OS Snow Leopard!" without an "Air" mention. Plus the current starting price is 1079€ (the other ad does say 1003€).

However, if there is an "iMac Air," that can explain the use of dual-core and thinner design as a distinction between the iMac Air and a more powerful (quad-core, like that Whirlpool poster) "regular" iMac.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carniphage

Putting Mac OS X on a tablet is like putting a steering wheel on a motorcycle.

eSATA is not powered, is seldom used and Apple has shown no interest in supporting in the Mac Pro, where it would likely get used the most, so expecting it now in the iMac seems unlikely.

E34 is designed primarily for mobile computing and Apple dropped it becauseas they stated the usage was too low. Inclusion on the iMac seems less likely than eSATA.

If they move the HDD to the bottom so you can pop it out like can the RAM, that would be great, but of course that depends on other engineering demands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacTel

Two reasons: The use of LED displays and the possibly smaller internal components (i.e. 1.8" drives and/or getting rid of optical drives altogether and going for SD). Apple tossed the floppy drive with the first iMac so why not toss the optical or make it optional. Thinner == better.

I dont know how much an LED backlight will thin out the iMac over the current backlight. I also cant see a 1.8 HDD in the machine.

Making an internal optical drive optional help make the case smaller. Only making it external does Apple save some space, but the desktops should be the very last machines to even consider having the optical drive removed. Notebooks first where weight, size and port-side space is extra important.

If SD comes to the entire desktop line and the rest of the notebook line then its my belief that Apple will be using it for OS installs in the future. This would mean the eventual removal of the optical drive altogether as internal component starting with the notebooks, then moving to the small desktops. I see no reason for the Mac Pro to loose the internal optical drive slots for many, many years.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

However, if there is an "iMac Air," that can explain the use of dual-core and thinner design as a distinction between the iMac Air and a more powerful (quad-core, like that Whirlpool poster) "regular" iMac.

That is an interesting idea. I can see how the MBA could have a niche market, but would the MBA be the desktop market for that same essential niche clientele. Portability is an important factor to many so the performance of the MBA becomes less of an issue, but with a desktop I am having trouble seeing how that could be true.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I'm sure that all products will get at least moderate boosts. It will obviously not be to many of our exact specifications (hell not by a long shot), though perhaps it can coincide to some degree with all the physical design they're changing.

From what I can gather given the excess of Intel processors, I guess I would be satisfied with this, though I'd rather they include an i7 860 which outperforms it, but unfortunately has a TDP of 95 W, yet has a significantly lower price of under $300. Who knows what Apple has planned, but I still wish they would just create an aluminum enclosure sized similarly to a PC ATX Mid Tower and name it the Mac Pro Mini. Sure it will eat into the Mac Pro sales, but it will just be a lower tier of components found in the Mac Pro. Oh, and while I'm dreaming, an ATI Radeon HD 5850 or 5870, since the nVidia Fermi won't be available until 2010.

I don't know about the pricing of the processors, though I did find out that Alienware is selling their M15x laptop series with options for each of the above processors, though they appear to be charging a $168 and $260 premium over their presumed cost for the processor upgrades (which Apple will undoubtedly
copy).

One site says that the i7 860 is a better performer than the current Mac Pro's single Xeon W3520 @ 2.66GHz.

Given the higher speed and hyper-threading of the i7 860, it seems that the current and future use of Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch make it a better long term buy than the i5 750, though the performance is fairly close. OpenCL probably will have more of an impact with system performance, though I haven't read much about how this will work out.

I really think with the prices of the i7 820QM & i7 920XM (and their comparison to the above specs of the i7 860) it is all the more reason for Apple to 'Think Different' and reassess the need for a more cost effective 'Mac Pro Mini'.

I am literally waiting on the specs of this refresh to decide what to buy this fall.

I would definitely bite a quad core iMac with gfx at the ATI 4xxx level (like the current optional high end gfx choice). I could also go for a 4 core mini and pop a SSD in it to make up for its weaker areas... *if* the gfx really were greatly improved.

However, if there isn't a quad core option for either line in this refresh, I am going to be pretty disappointed and would have to look at building a PC.

Edit:

Looking back over the posts a little closer, I *really* hope that these new iMacs just happen to be thinner due to overall design improvements secondary to the main changes. If they are similar in spec to the current models and just thinner, they've lost me, to be honest. How much I care about an iMac being thinner wouldn't fill a thimble.

Horrible mockup, from a usability standpoint.. It sits too low, there are no noticeable air vents (which will likely happen eventually, just not anytime soon), the case is way too small for the proposed components with TDP ratings, and the pivot arm looks very un-Apple.

I don’t understand why people doing these Photoshop mockups can only think about what they think is cool without also thinking about practical aspects of their proposed design.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Perhaps 2 versions of a new iMac...one with SD card and w/o optical drive to make it ultra thin.
And another with optical and not as thin, but thinner than the current one.
As much as I'd like to see optical drives disappear, it might be premature to ditch altogether. A move like that may very well scare off potential switchers.

Perhaps 2 versions of a new iMac...one with SD card and w/o optical drive to make it ultra thin.
And another with optical and not as thin, but thinner than the current one.
As much as I'd like to see optical drives disappear, it might be premature to ditch altogether. A move like that may very well scare off potential switchers.

Testing the waters with a machine designed for larger Mac audience is a good idea. Im not sure that removing the optical drive from an iMac will make it much thinner. After all, the power supply and HDD are surely thicker than the 11.7mm slim slot-loading drive used in the iMac. It would free up some internal space, which may allow Apple to remove the chin from at least the 24 model.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Two reasons: The use of LED displays and the possibly smaller internal components (i.e. 1.8" drives and/or getting rid of optical drives altogether and going for SD). Apple tossed the floppy drive with the first iMac so why not toss the optical or make it optional. Thinner == better.

Why all the way down to 1.8"?! Why not 2.5" HDD?!

However, I don't believe Apple will trade down to lower capacity and more expensive HDD to make a desktop smaller for no reason. The iMac size and thickness is not and will not be an issue since it is desktop. Apple still need to improve the iMac graphics card and display. They also need to make it easier to upgrade the HDD and use better speakers.

I checked and I see "Configura tu iMac aquÃ*. Â¡Ahora incluye Mac OS Snow Leopard!" without an "Air" mention. Plus the current starting price is 1079€ (the other ad does say 1003€).

However, if there is an "iMac Air," that can explain the use of dual-core and thinner design as a distinction between the iMac Air and a more powerful (quad-core, like that Whirlpool poster) "regular" iMac.

In my opinion the reason Apple encouraged Intel with Light Peak is because in order to get more horsepower when the tablet is connected to the desktop based processors, graphic card, hard drive etc, Apple had to come up with a very fast interface.

So they are capitalizing on that further, letting Intel get involved in all before the new Mac's are released and dissected.

That's my opinion anyway.

The danger is that we sleepwalk into a world where cabals of corporations control not only the mainstream devices and the software on them, but also the entire ecosystem of online services around...

... and the fact they consider DVD burning to be a major selling point of iLife and etc would keep them from making this plunge.

Where did you get that DVD burning was a major selling point of iLife in CE 2009? Check out the iLife page.

While they still include iDVD in the suite, it hasn’t gotten any rich updates in sometime and they only showcase the other 4 apps (iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband and iWeb) from that page. There is only one link that leads to iDVD.

On top of that we have an unchanged 32-bit version of DVD Player in Snow Leopard and DVD Studio Pro hasn’t been updated in 2 years despite the other pro apps in Final Cut Studio getting regular updates.

Quote:

We aren't going to lose optical storage until everyone has connectivity so insane that pulling down a HD movie, or a huge 10GB bunch of application code or data, is trivial.

That is an all-or-nothing attitude. Like with most changes in life there is a transition stage. They have already done it with the MBA (which can use any Mac optical drive). Others have copied that format of a ultra-light notebook. Then there are netbooks that are selling droves. You don’t remove all optical drives at once and then pull all software support for it forcing customers to change their habits. You start with the niche devices, then you move to the mainstream devices that can most use the space saving (in this case notebooks). Later you remove it from other devices while you offer an external solution for those that need it. The current MBA SuperDrive is $99 but that price was set when it first came out if they were selling a lot more I bet it could go for under $49 now. The writing is on the wall, the only questions are when will Apple start to make the shift and how long before others follow suit.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Shame I have no interest in a thinner, less featured iMac. For a desktop machine, I don't care if it is 1",1.5", 2" or 3" deep (with a curved back to disguise the depth). I care about CPU power, graphical power, memory capacity and expandability and storage capacity.

Apple makes the exact product you want. It's called the Mac Pro.

Attention Internet Users!

"it's" contraction of "it is""its" possessive form of the pronoun "it".

Making an internal optical drive optional help make the case smaller. Only making it external does Apple save some space, but the desktops should be the very last machines to even consider having the optical drive removed. Notebooks first where weight, size and port-side space is extra important.

I agree. It makes much more sense to pull the optical drive from the notebooks first, where size and weight are much more important. I would expect the order in which the Macs lose the internal optical drive to be:
MacBook Air (from the beginning)
MacBook (hopefully this week)
MacBook Pro (in a year or two)
Mac Mini (in two or three years)
iMac (in two or three years)
Mac Pro (available optionally for at least another five years)

iMac Air name sounds wrong. I wouldn't put this trick past Apple. If it's called iMac Air I'll eat my hat.

A better naming scheme would be to make it thinner call it iMac, and then make a far more powerful, thicker, QUAD-CORE version and call that iMac Pro. Or even iMac+ (plus), to keep from mixing it up with the Mac Pro. And perhaps offer iMac Plus in 24" and 30" only. Offering the new iMac in 20" and 24".

I agree. It makes much more sense to pull the optical drive from the notebooks first, where size and weight are much more important. I would expect the order in which the Macs lose the internal optical drive to be:
MacBook Air (from the beginning)
MacBook (hopefully this week)
MacBook Pro (in a year or two)
Mac Mini (in two or three years)
iMac (in two or three years)
Mac Pro (available optionally for at least another five years)

The way I'm using my Mini, I think there could be a market for a stripped down device that goes without an optical drive built in. I have an external DVD burner (CD only on Mini) and several external hard drives. An even more compact Mini would be rather interesting as the heart of a system that handles expansion by way of plenty of connectivity.

Running a 7200 RPM external via Firewire 800 would result in faster performance than running an OS off of an internal laptop 5400 RPM drive. So why not go instead with a low-capacity solid-state drive with enough room to handle the OS and applications, while using externals to store tons of data. I would imagine that even 64Gb of internal memory would be enough to handle the basics, i.e. the OS, applications, a few files stored here and there.

Imagine how mini the Mini could become if you replaced the hard drive with an SSD and didn't include an optical drive. The power brick would be larger than the computer.

I suspect Steve Jobs and Co. have imagined it but it's less a matter of the technology becoming available and more a question of timing. SSDs need to become affordable but if you're target is 64Gb rather than something a lot more ambitious, this can happen sooner than later. Operating minus an optical drive is something more workable as consumers start doing it more with other devices like netbooks and the like.

I already have the external bits and pieces to take such a stripped down Mini and place it at the heart of a system that meets my needs. At the same time, 64Gb with Snow Leopard and ILife preinstalled, would serve the needs of a large percentage of computer users. Besides, external drives and burners are dirt-cheap, not to mention plug-and-play. One could easily bring home said Ultra Mini, get on the thing and do assorted useful stuff and go out and acquire the hardware to do more ambitious work as required. The beauty of this for companies like Apple is that not having to deal with optical drives is one less headache, i.e. one less component that can break down and cause Apple to have to rectify the situation.

Externals have the advantage, also, of being incredibly easy to replace when they break down. No more taking the computer apart to replace a hard drive or faulty optical unit. No more caring that the Mini you buy now doesn't have Blu Ray capability because it's not the Mini that will be handling the Blu Ray discs directly.

That said, I can't imagine that when Apple releases the new Mini in a few days, anything so drastic will be in the cards. I expect the revised Mini to have specs similar to the 13" MacBook Pro accompanied by a price reduction. Not sure if a 9400M update is going to be part of this but the 9400M is hardly a problem.

I'm not going to buy a Mini this calender year. I have a new computer on the agenda for 2010. Still, a revised Mini now is great news for me because it means rumours of the Mini's death are greatly exaggerated. I would love to own a Mac Pro tower but the cost is way out of my range and I'm not making any money with the computer, just having some fun, doing a little bit of non-profit video work, etc. A Mini, even a stripped down, impossibly tiny one, would meet my needs. Hopefully next year when I'm ready to buy, the Mini, whatever form it takes, is alive and well. Now it looks like it will be.

I agree. It makes much more sense to pull the optical drive from the notebooks first, where size and weight are much more important. I would expect the order in which the Macs lose the internal optical drive to be:
MacBook Air (from the beginning)
MacBook (hopefully this week)
MacBook Pro (in a year or two)
Mac Mini (in two or three years)
iMac (in two or three years)
Mac Pro (available optionally for at least another five years)

Assuming that optical drives do eventually go away, your order is likely correct (except perhaps for the position of the mini, which should perhaps be before the MBP), but the schedule is far too ambitious, I think. I think we are still quite a few years away from the necessary bandwidth being plentiful and inexpensive enough that the network replaces optical as a medium.

The situation is not really the same as eliminating the floppy drive. Other than supporting legacy disks, the floppy wasn't really necessary any more. Optical drives could do pretty much anything a floppy drive could and cheaper. Pretty much all software was already shipping on optical and it was cheaper to do so, and floppy disks were not used for anything outside of the personal computer industry.

Today, optical has not yet been effectively superseded by another medium and it has uses -- music, video -- besides being strictly a data storage and software distribution medium. Consumer bandwidth is not increasing significantly at this point, nor is geographical availability. In fact, rather than building out networks, ISPs are looking at usage caps and higher and tiered rate structures. (Wired, ISPs, at least, and the wireless carriers are nowhere near being able to provide the necessary bandwidth.)

Based on the current situation, I think your schedule would probably need to be at least doubled. Unless there's a major shakeup in the broadband industry, the network isn't going to be fast enough and ubiquitous enough that it can effectively replace optical for several years, at least, and eliminating optical drives would be problematic for many consumers. And, I don't really see another medium that's cheap enough and widely enough used that would replace optical either.

Then again, optical may not go away entirely at all for a very long time.